Lost In Translation

One of my favorite things about New York City is that on any random walk down the street or ride on the subway, you're almost guaranteed to hear conversations taking place in about five different languages.

To me, learning a foreign language is like trying to crack a secret code. Time consuming and super challenging, but totally worth it. The more languages you know, the more the world makes sense.

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Did you know that Spanish is Alexis Bledel's first language? Charlize Theron speaks Afrikaans, and Natalie Portman is fluent in Hebrew!

No matter how many hours you spend conjugating verbs, nothing will make a language come alive easier and faster than actually listening to native speakers. We can't all just jet to France like the Jolie-Pitts every time we want to practice our French, but there other (cheaper!) ways to gain exposure to the language you want to learn.

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Start watching foreign films or your favorite English movies dubbed, and see if you can follow the action. Add some catchy non-English music to your iPod and listen on repeat (I think Shakira's Spanish releases are even better than her English singles!)

Also, I just discovered this great site called Live Mocha that lets you practice writing, listening, and speaking a foreign language without crossing any time zones. It's free to sign up, you can pick out your own fluent conversation partner, and go at your own pace. C'est magnifique!

Which languages can you speak? Do you think it's important to know a language besides English?